Wageningen second biotechnological city in the world

Published on

March 14, 2013

Research from two scientists from Utrecht University shows that Wageningen is the second city in the world in the area of biotechnology, only preceded by Cambridge in the US.

The Utrecht researchers classify Wageningen as a stable growing city because the Wageningen’s share in the total amount of publications remains constant. It is precisely these stable growers that explore new scientific areas.

Scientists Gaston Heimeriks and Ron Boschma from Utrecht University researched how en where new scientific knowledge occured in relation to the competitiveness of countries and regions. They looked at publications in the period 1986-2008 and sorted by authors, their workplace and words in titles such as ‘bioreactor’, ‘enzym’ and ‘recombinant’.

The research shows a shift in the countries where the production of knowledge took place. In the mid-eighties this was mostly Europe, Japan and the USA. In recent years there has been an important growth in Asia, South Korea and China. Cambridge published the most publications (431), followed by Wageningen (353) and London (352). De South Korean cities of Seoel and Taejon are respectively in positions 4 and 5 with 350 and 346 publications.

Gaston Heimeriks and Ron Boschma’s research has been published in the Journal of Economic Geography: